England's No2 seed Adrian Grant was denied his anticipated place in the final of the Mayacamas Ranch North American Open after losing to Malaysia's Mohd Azlan Iskandar in a dramatic semi-final clash in the $25,000 PSA Tour event at the San Francisco Bay Club in San Francisco.

Third seed Iskandar made his breakthrough in the second game, edging through 21-19 after one of the longest 'tie-break' games since the introduction of 11-point scoring three years ago.

Left-hander Grant recovered to take the third game, but the 24-year-old from Kuala Lumpur - ranked four places below his opponent in the world top 20 - extended his advantage to win 11-4, 11-10 (11-9), 4-11, 11-7.

Iskandar is celebrating his 14th PSA Tour final appearance - but his first since October last year.

Top seed John White ended the brief 'giant-killing' run of Canada's Shawn Delierre, comfortably beating the No7 seed 11-9, 11-6, 11-5 to mark up his 31st PSA Tour final appearance - and the eighth in the USA since the former world number one from Scotland moved to Philadelphia two years ago.

Semi-finals:
[1] John White (SCO) bt [7] Shawn Delierre (CAN) 11-9, 11-6, 11-5
[3] Mohd Azlan Iskandar (MAS) bt [2] Adrian Grant (ENG) 11-4, 11-10 (11-9), 4-11, 11-7